So far from home!
dummy1
'Yes, Colonel.' This wasn't Capri. And, also, he wasn't alone this time: whatever Zimin might suspect, he couldn't be sure. Or, even if his suspicions were close to certainty, his guts ought to be twisting just as much, by God! 'But, I don't think you've met my colleagues — or have you?' He turned to Mitchell and Mary Franklin. 'Mary — ?' He decided to omit Richardson from the introduction. 'Paul — ?' Now back to Zimin, who must be expecting a third name. 'Miss Franklin is representing Mr Henry Jaggard, of course. And Dr Mitchell is Sir Jack Butler's representative, as you must be well aware.' Now for Peter Richardson! 'And Major Richardson is why we're here — eh?' He nodded everything after Capri into the balance finally. 'The Major and I are old comrades, you understand?'
'Colonel Zimin.' Mary Franklin held her umbrella with both hands.
'Yes.' A bead of rain ran down Mitchell's cheek as he looked down his nose at the Russian. 'I hope that man of yours who's playing with my car also knows how to drive it, Colonel. Does he?'
Richardson, who was to blame for everything, said nothing.
Zimin assimilated those three different contributions to his problems without acknowledging any of them. 'If you and your colleagues will come with me, please — ?'
'With pleasure.' Audley hastened to accept the invitation on everyone's behalf. With that morning rush-hour in Monmouth behind them they had still been lucky that there dummy1
had been so little traffic on the side-road, to complicate this meeting further. But even with that motor-cyclist behind them (and maybe another one ahead of him, speaking just as good Queen's/British Telecom English politely, to delay any late travellers-to-work), it would be advisable to co-operate. 'Shall we go, then — ?'
He moved to follow Zimin down the line of vehicles, conscious not so much of the others behind him as of the ersatz Royal Signals sar'-major in the rear, with the corporal appearing in each gap, until the Russian stopped beside a truck with its canvas hood open for them. Then he stood aside.
Zimin assisted Mary Franklin into the truck, but then also stood aside.
'Spetsnaz.' Richardson scowled the statement at him.
Paul Mitchell, for his part, looked as though he was still thinking more about his Porsche than his skin. '"No trouble", David —?'
The inside of the truck smelt like the British Army, as of old.
Which was interesting, academically, because that was what it was supposed to be, although not what it was. And that was another plus for Spetsnaz, because all armies had their own distinctive smelclass="underline" wasn't that what that old general from 1916 had once said to him?
But then, of course, the old general had never envisaged quite this sort of experience.
dummy1
3
It wasn't Maerdy Castle, of course: it would never have been anywhere so romantically appropriate for an arms dump (albeit not for the conquest and subjugation of Wales this time, Audley thought grimly). Although private and protected by its relative inaccessibility, the castle would never have been safe enough from interested trespassers (of whom he himself had been one, so long ago — long even before the days of Lukianov and Peter Richardson). Nor, for that matter, would its overgrown ruins either have offered any secure and weather-proof cover for the dump's contents or the necessary accommodation for its guardians.
Only a farm (a private house would have been too small, if not too obvious) would have answered all those needs. And perhaps that had been the starting point in the Russians'
desperate reconstruction of that one vital piece of information which the computer conspirators had erased from the records with all the rest, both essential and inessentiaclass="underline" the co-ordinates of its map reference.
Only a farm! But that was easy to say now that he was actually looking at it. Given time, perhaps he would have got this far, eliminating one possibility after another to pinpoint this place after Richardson had narrowed the search area. And yet that itself was only an excuse, in dummy1
dismal retrospect: there was never enough time, and in spite of Jake's warning he had squandered what he had had of it: he had allowed himself to be trapped by self-admiration of his wonderful memory, which had come up with so many answers but had foiled him in the end.
'Dr Audley — can you help me?'
'Help — ?' He realized that he had forgotten everything else, and everyone else with it, in his contemplation of the muddy farmyard and his own foolishness after he had climbed out of the truck. But what had been easy for him in the damp wreck of his second-best suit was proving not so easy for Mary Franklin. 'Yes — I'm sorry, Miss Franklin.'
She was light as a feather, and soft with it. And she still smelt good.
'Thank you, Dr Audley.' Liberated from the discomfort of the truck, she immediately put up her little red umbrella again, smoothed down her skirt, and then looked around as though she owned the place, ignoring only the Spetsnaz corporal who was covering them again with his automatic rifle. 'Where are we?'
She didn't just smell good, she was good. Because, for all that she must be bloody scared and was standing in thick mud, she hadn't lost her cooclass="underline" she appeared as self-possessed as she might have been on an unfortunately inclement day at Henley or Ascot. And that served to concentrate his mind properly, away from self-pity.
'Russian headquarters in Wales, Miss Franklin.' He pointed dummy1
towards another truck, which had been outside a tumbledown barn. 'But I rather think they're busy pulling out now.'
'Yes.' She watched two curiously-garbed Spetsnaz men place a small metal container in a larger one, which was then itself hydraulically lifted, to disappear into the truck. 'I suppose we should be pleased.'